The LPs at Challenges 10, 15, 20 and 25 are at double speed: can anyone tell me please how to play them at normal speed?
That’s how they should be - they are designed to get your ears accustomed to hearing rapid pace and you shouldn’t attempt to understand them, just practise listening - it sounds odd, but it’s been proved to make speech at normal speed (which learners often find ‘too fast’) much easier to cope with in the longer term.
Thank you.
Hello! I have just started listening to the second listening practice - the one attached to level 1 challenge 10 - which is the first one at high speed. I love it - I started to feel the benefit straight away and what’s even better, it makes me laugh to hear Iestyn and Cat rabbiting away 
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Am enjoying listening to double time speech, it’s funny. As am on holiday am also enjoying listening to earlier challenges. The words come quite easily for those which they don’t for challenges 13/14. Jill
I want to mention this so that someone else finding they have the same experience knows they’re not alone. I listened to the double speed listening exercises every day for 6 months and gained no understanding at all. Not a word of it. I only started to make progress in understanding after I slowed them down, and then gradually sped them back up over the course of several weeks. (One slowed down to normal speed for a week, then the next one, then the next. Then back to the first exercise a bit faster for a week, then the next one at that faster speed for a week, and so on.)
Admittedly a large part of this is just me having difficulty with listening comprehension in general. The same is true in my native English to an extent - I frequently mishear things, and always have. Maybe it’s a language processing defect or something. Still, I can’t be the only one, and it’s discouraging when you look for someone having the same difficulty but turn up nothing. So if you too experience this with the listening exercises: know you’re not alone!
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I was trying to slow this down as well. Now I see the point of it. I will have to see if it works for me!